Govt Spox: NYT Editors ‘Still Don’t Get It’ On Migrant Crisis

Government spokesman Zoltán Kovács has hit back at New York Times, which criticised Hungary for its migration policy in a weekend editorial, saying they “really still don’t get it”. In a blog entry on the spokesman’s official website posted on Monday, Kovács said the government of Viktor Orbán had “built a fence on the southern border of Hungary because it’s an external border of the European Union’s Schengen Area.”

“It was not simply “to tighten his border,” as they say, but to defend Europe and uphold treaty obligations, which include preventing illegal immigration into the EU. Maintaining the security and integrity of the borders of the Schengen zone, the borderless area that allows freedom of movement, is essential to the EU’s security and the workings of the internal market. That’s a key point here.”

Kovács continued: “Strong and secure borders are not making the migration crisis worse. On the contrary! It’s weak, undefended borders that are aggravating the crisis by creating a “pull factor,” encouraging migrants to set out on the dangerous journey. It’s the failure to secure the borders that has fuelled an industry of human trafficking that prey on migrants.

And it’s the failure to secure the external borders that has led to hundreds of thousands of migrants illegally entering the territory of the EU.”